I'm half the man I use to be
by Justin Sane
Summary: The day before Chamber joined Gen-X


Disclaimer: Jonothon isn't my character, he's Marvel. If he was mine he'd show up in a comic for more then a single frame. The title comes from the Stone Temple Pilots song Creep.  
  
Other Info: Jonothon is Chamber from the Gen-X comics. This little story takes place right before he joins the Gen-X team. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
"Jonothon?"  
  
The young man looked up hearing his name spoken for the first time in days by his mother. The woman walked over to where her sixteen year old son sat on a ratty couch in their basement. She sat down next to him, lightly touching what was left of the once handsome face Jonothon had been graced with.  
  
Even missing his lower face it was easy to see that Jonothon was the woman's son. They had the same color of hair, the fine cheek bones, the same deep brown eyes. Jonothon's eyes were filled with sorrow, self loathing, and all the hate he had grown for his new mutant "gifts." His mother's eyes looked so much the same, the sorrow she felt for losing her only child, the feelings of hate she had grown for this. this monster in front of her. Still she ran her hand down the side of his face, stopping at the bandages that started a little under Jonothon's nose.  
  
"Jonothon? Why are you still alive? You're only hurting people. Kill yourself Jonothon, do it so you don't have to make everyone else suffer with you."  
  
A faint smile touched her lips as she watched her son's reaction. He came so close to crying, a few tears slipped out of his eyes but there was a new look in them. He had a goal now, something to do. The woman was proud of her son at that moment. Jonothon had been a good boy, always doing what was best even if it didn't seem right. She loved her son, that's why she wanted him dead. She would never be able to love the freak he had become and they both knew it. It pained her to see her once lovely child looking like a creature from the dead. And she saw how much it hurt him. How could a mother let her child suffer so much? She kissed her son's forehead before getting up and going back up to her husband. If she didn't leave then she would break down crying or try and kill Jonothon herself.  
  
Jonothon watched his mother leave him. He was a telepath, a weak one still but his mother's thoughts and feelings where so easy to pick up on. That's what hurt him the most, knowing she was telling him, asking him to kill himself because she loved him to much. He curled himself up into a fetal position, sobbing to himself before he was able to drift into an uneasy sleep.  
  
He didn't sleep for long though. He never did. His body would remember that he wasn't breathing and he would wake up gasping for air and never getting any. Jonothon cried for a bit, wiping away the tears when he was done and noticing that even they were changing. They were now thicker and had almost a silver shine to them. A wrinkle formed on his forehead, the wrinkle that had always been there when he had been frowning. He had seen a silvery liquid like this before. His forehead smoothed out as he remembered. He had cut himself when he had escaped from the morgue, cut himself on a piece of glass from a window he had broken. The blood had been red at first but then had gone to that think silver liquid.  
  
Jonothon started searching though his basement. A few weeks ago he had broken his bed room window. He had brought the frame and the glass that was still attached to it down here until garbage day. A few days later his chest and the lower part of his face had been blown off by the mutant gifts he had been born with. No one had remembered to throw the broken window out and Jonothon was grateful for that.  
  
He found the window right where he had left it, towards the back of the basement, near the door to the outside. He started pulling at one of the jagged bits of glass that was still stuck in the window's frame. Jonothon cut his fingers and hands and gave up on trying to pull a chunk of glass free. He closed his eyes before dragging his wrist against the glass, cutting it horizontally and as deep as he could. He did that multiple times on one arm before he started cutting the other. By the time he was done a puddle of silver liquid lay on the floor.  
  
Jonothon looked at his lower arms and started to cry again. Muddled thoughts of how life could be so curl went though his mind. Any normal person would have been dead by now. With so many deep cuts he should have been feeling the effects of so much blood loss. But looking at his arms now told him that bleeding himself out would never work. His blood moved to slow though his body. The first few cuts had already scabbed up. He took a closer look at the liquid on the floor and kicked the broken window seeing how most of the puddle had been water colored by his blood.  
  
Leaning against a wall Jonothon went though some of the other ways he could do himself in. Drowning, hanging and suffocating wouldn't work on him because he didn't breath anymore. He couldn't poison himself because he had no mouth much less a stomach. Cutting himself would take to long. He thought of putting a bullet though his head, his father did have gun after all. But he didn't want to hurt his face anymore, wasn't losing the lower part of it bad enough? It didn't help that Jonothon had always been a bit vain about his looks. He couldn't bring himself to hurt others either. He would have tried to run a car into a building or get himself hit by a train but he was worried what his powers would do. Would the rest of him explode and hurt people? He didn't think the energy running though him would go out quietly and didn't want to see what it could do.  
  
He walked upstairs, knowing that both of his parents where still asleep thanks to his new telepathic powers. He paused as he walked by the kitchen table noticing the mail was still sitting there. He picked up a letter that had his name on it and looked it over. It was from the Xaiver Institute for Higher Learning. Sounded like some sort of college or prep school to him. He opened the letter absent mindedly and started reading. Jonothon had read though the letter twice making sure he understood it.  
  
Dear Mr. Starsmore,  
After a careful review of your case history as provided by the  
physician assigned to evaluate your condition, I feel comfortable in  
encouraging you to consider enrollment at our establishment.  
  
He looked at the letter, making sure it had been sent after his accident then picked up the envelope to see where this school was. Snow Valley, Massachusetts. It took Jonothon to realize this place was in the United Sates. Well there went the idea of going there; he didn't think his parents would give him the money to pay for a trip like this. He was ready to throw the envelope away when he noticed there was still something in it. If Jonothon had been breathing he would have stopped, there was a plane ticket in the envelope. A first class plane ticket.  
  
Jonothon quietly went down to his room, shoving some clothing into a bag and grabbing his coat and quickly wrapping his chest and face in bandages to hide his mutant powers. This was a lucky break for him; if he changed his mind about going to the US then he could just sell his ticket. He walked out of his room going back to the kitchen. He carefully placed the letter and ticket in the inside pocket of his coat and grabbed a pad of paper and a pen incase someone needed to talk to him.  
  
He took a quick look around his house before taking one more thing with him; a picture that had been taken just a few months ago. He knew already that picture would bring him a great deal if misery but that didn't matter. Jonothon wanted to remember what he had looked like when he had been whole.  
  
His head jerked up and looked down the hall to his parent's room. Time to leave now, his father was waking up. His mother may tell him to kill himself but his father would do it for him. He didn't care what his parents though happened to him. He would be out of their lives and that would be enough for them.  
  
Jonothon quickly left the house, tightening the bandages around his face as he walked down the street. At the end of the block he hailed a cab and jumped in. It took him a moment to write out where he wanted to go. He sat back, waiting for the cab to get to the airport. He would spend all his money on this cab ride. And when he got to Xaiver's little school he would burn everything he had brought with him, well almost everything. Jonothon wanted to get rid of all the memories of his past life. It would take him awhile to get use to this change in his life but if he could do that then all things were possible. 


End file.
